"It is open source, so I can use it for anything." That sentence has ended up in more client contracts than it should have. Most popular image models are not open source in the software sense. They are open weights, released under licences that differ model by model, and some of those licences say things you would not guess.
Downloading a model is free. Shipping work made with it is a separate question with a separate answer for each model. Here are the ones that matter most, quoted from the licences themselves.
This is not legal advice. It is a reading list with page numbers. For anything that matters, put the licence in front of a lawyer.
FLUX.1 [dev]: Sell the Outputs, Not the Service
The FLUX.1 [dev] Non-Commercial License v1.1.1 is the one most often misread, in both directions.
- The model itself is non-commercial. The licence permits use only for a Non-Commercial Purpose, and says use "for revenue-generating activity" does not qualify.
- The outputs are a different matter. Section 2(d) says Black Forest Labs claims "no ownership rights in and to the Outputs" and that you "may use Output for any purpose (including for commercial purposes), except as expressly prohibited herein."
- One prohibition stands out: you may not use outputs to train, fine-tune or distill a model that competes with FLUX.1 [dev].
The tension between the first two points is where people get burned. A hobbyist who later sells a print made with FLUX.1 [dev] is reading the outputs clause. A studio running FLUX.1 [dev] as part of a paid production pipeline is closer to the revenue-generating activity clause. Those are different situations, and the licence treats them differently.
Stable Diffusion 3.5: Free Until a Revenue Line
Stability AI's Community License Agreement takes a different approach: it is commercial-friendly, up to a threshold.
- If you or your affiliates "generate more than USD $1,000,000 in annual revenue", the licence terminates and you need an enterprise licence from Stability AI.
- The revenue counts "regardless of whether that revenue is generated directly or indirectly" from the models. A large agency using SD 3.5 for one small job is measured on the agency's revenue, not the job's.
- Affiliates count too: entities that control you, that you control, or that share common control with you.
- On outputs: "As between You and Stability AI, You own any outputs generated from the Models or Derivative Works", to the extent the law allows.
The Comparison
| Question | FLUX.1 [dev] | SD 3.5 (Community License) |
|---|---|---|
| Run it for a business? | Not for revenue-generating activity | Yes, under $1M annual revenue including affiliates |
| Use the images commercially? | Yes, with stated exceptions | Yes; you own outputs as against Stability |
| Train a competing model on outputs? | No | Check the licence's own restrictions |
| Gated download? | Yes, accept terms on Hugging Face | Yes, accept terms on Hugging Face |
The Licence Is Not the Whole Question
Even a licence that hands you every right in the output cannot give you more than the law allows. In January 2025 the U.S. Copyright Office published Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2: Copyrightability. Among its conclusions:
- "Copyright does not extend to purely AI-generated material, or material where there is insufficient human control over the expressive elements."
- "Based on the functioning of current generally available technology, prompts do not alone provide sufficient control."
- Human authors are entitled to copyright in their expression that is perceptible in AI-generated outputs, and in creative selection, arrangement or modification of the outputs.
For client work, that changes the conversation. "We own it" may be true against the model maker and still leave the image without copyright protection against everyone else, unless meaningful human authorship is in it.
How Vision Studio Handles It
We cannot make licensing simple, but we can stop it from being invisible.
- Licences are shown at search time. In the Model Foundry, each Hugging Face and CivitAI result shows its tier and licence before you install anything.
- The starter set leaves FLUX.1 [dev] out. On first launch you can install a curated set of 33 models in one step. FLUX.1 [dev] and its companions are licensed for non-commercial use, so they are not in it. You can still add them yourself, knowingly.
- Gated models stay gated. SD 3.5 Large and Medium require you to accept their licences on Hugging Face and paste a free access token. We do not route around a licence click on your behalf.
The Small Files Carry Licences Too
The base model is the licence everyone checks. The add-ons are the ones everyone forgets. A LoRA trained by a community member, a ControlNet from a research lab and an upscaler from a third project each arrive with their own terms, and those terms do not inherit from the base model. Community hubs let uploaders choose their own permissions, so two LoRAs on the same page can carry very different rules.
A pipeline is only as permissive as its most restrictive component. If one LoRA in your stack forbids commercial use, the stack does too, however generous the base model is. That is why the checklist below starts with an inventory, not with the model you are proudest of.
A Pre-Flight Checklist for Paid Work
- List every model in the pipeline, including LoRAs, ControlNets and upscalers. Each has its own licence.
- Classify the use: are you selling outputs, or is the model running inside a revenue-generating service?
- Check revenue thresholds against the whole company and its affiliates, not the project.
- Document the human authorship: sketches, compositions, masks, edits and selection. That is the part the law protects.
- Keep the licence version you accepted with the project files. Licences get revised.
Open Weights, Open Eyes
Open-weight models are one of the best things to happen to independent creators. Using them well means treating each one as what it is: a specific grant of rights, with specific limits, written by a specific company. Read the licence before the client brief, not after the invoice.
Vision Studio is free, open-source (MIT), and runs locally on your GPU. The app's own licence is MIT; the models you load carry their own licences, which the Model Foundry shows before you install. Download it at vision-studio-x.com/download.
-Rocky
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